Robert A. Taft

Robert Alphonso Taft (8 September 1889-31 July 1953) was a US Senator from Ohio (R) from 3 January 1939 to 31 July 1953, succeeding Robert J. Bulkley and preceding Thomas A. Burke. Taft, the son of President William Howard Taft, was the leader of the conservative "Taftite Republicans" faction of the Republican Party, and he was known for his hyper-partisanship and his rivalries with Democratic Party president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Rockefeller Republican leader Thomas E. Dewey.

Biography
Robert Alphonso Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 8 September 1889, the son of William Howard Taft. In 1913, Taft became a lawyer after graduating from Harvard Law School, and he was rejected from the US Army during World War I due to his poor eyesight. Instead, he worked for the Food and Drug Administration's legal staff, and he met his idol Herbert Hoover while working for the FDA. In 1920, Taft was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican Party member, and he was elected to the State Senate in 1930. Taft opposed the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, and he became a powerful figure in the Ohio Republican Party, known for his immense loyalty towards the conservative cause. In 1938, he defeated Democratic Party incumbent Robert J. Bulkley to win election to the US Senate, and he became the leader of the "Taftite Republicans", a faction of the Republican Party that supported isolationism, opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and supported limited government. From 1939 to 1941, he angered many Rockefeller Republicans (such as Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey) by opposing US entry into World War II, and he also opposed the internment of Japanese-Americans after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. After the war, he opposed the Nuremberg Trials (claiming that they were unfair in that the victors of the war were treated as the victims, while also serving as the judges), believed that NATO was unnecessary and would only provoke the Soviets, questioned the constitutionality of the Korean War, and supported US aid to Israel. Taft's conservative coalition also successfully curbed the power of labor unions in the years after the war. Taft suddenly died of pancreatic cancer in New York City, New York on 31 July 1953 at the age of 63.